A Human Pride?

The Lion King is probably one of the most successful films ever made by Disney. I will not deny this. But a lot of the actions that lions made are almost too human-like. Here are some points.

1) The King is of course in real life the leader of the pride. But there are no such thing as a queen in reality. All lionesses are equal and it is Mufasa who has the right to mate with them all. So, say good-bye to the theory that Scar is the father of Nala. It wouldn't have been tolerated by Mufasa. Plus, in nature, lionesses mate only with the lion that has the biggest mane. Sorry Scar, you definately do not belong in that category.

2) Simba in real life would not be the heir to the throne. Like all male cubs he would be chased out of the pride when he grows up. He would only become "King" when he defeats Mufasa in a fight. The Lion King monarchy resembles the usual human monarchy.

3) Why are there so few cubs? Usually a pride has around four mothers with cubs. Equally there are usually 1-4 cubs in a litter. We only see in the film two cubs. Yet again, humans have usually 1-2 children thus making this film more human.

4) We have now and again odd friendships in the wild and captivity (cat and bear, wolf and deer, lioness and antelope etc.) But we also know that hyenas and lions go as well together as ice cream and tuna (Never try that!). So how in the world did Scar befriend an army of hyenas that became this sort of secret police!? This is politic and politic does not exist in the wild. (At least I hope so)

5) A stampede is normal. A murder in it is definately not normal! Animals don't have a complex mind like ours to plot like that. They might know the emotion jealousy but it wouldn't go as far as to murdering. Scar also lies. Animals can't lie. Humans are the only ones who are able to do so. Plus, wouldn't sinking your claws draw some blood? Simba must have had a human nose, or otherwise not only would he have smelled the blood, he would recognize it as Mufasa's blood and wouldn't have fallen for Scar's lie.

6) Animals do mourn. But they can't cry. Anyway, when a leader is killed or is defeated by a rival the loyalties of the lioness switches over to the new leader. In real life, cubs are killed at this point. This is necessary so that the maternal feelings switches over to the new leader's cubs. Through complex analizing I've come to the conclusion that Scar probably was too cowardly to do it himself. In real life there would have no hesitation. But after he fails to kill Simba himself it sort of shows that Scar does not have the courage to kill cubs. Throwing someone from a cliff and actually using your teeth to kill someone are different matters. There is one cub from 6NA that might have survived: Kula. Near the end of the film we see a rather dark lioness that could just be Kula. The hyenas might have killed the others who were mainly male cubs.

7) When Simba returns he is met by a relieved Sarabi. In real life the maternal feelings wear off when the cub is full-grown. So in reality Sarabi should have been aggressive towards Simba because she would have considered him as a rogue taking over. And the fact that Simba is her son does not change anything!

In the end the only scene that was really leonine was the fight between Scar and Simba. The Lion King is still great film. The only reason why I bothered you by writing this down is because I noticed a lot of people try to stick to the theorys that Disney has given them like for example: "Scar killed all the cubs and no objection should be raised." And people insist that we should mindlessly accept this! This bugs me because that just shows that we are not trying to imagine, we are not fantasizing nor are we trying to think outside of the box. Open your mind to the possibilities. Plus this is a film, not a documentry. Disney did not stick to the facts because it is a cartoon film and children and family are meant to enjoy it. So hey, this is a film with lions that act like humans and it should stay that way. Don't be boring and a know-it-all. I already pointed out that The Lion King is not sticking to the facts of nature so what does it matter if one or two other facts are going against the nature of lions? Anyway if it did follow ALL the facts in reality then The Lion King would not be The Lion King that we know today!

(Don't take this seriously, I just wanted to make some order to those that insist on facts that don't really change our lifes nor the lions)

Last comments

there was one more i saw this on the discovery channle few
weeks back lions who live as brothers (scar and mufasa)
share their females the pride is theres to populate, its one
reason i think some figure lil nala wasnt killed b/c scar
mated with sarofina and had nala (yuck). Anyway if u wanna
go that far, Kovu shouldn't have been excepted into the
pride at all without facing simba in a death match, but it
was disney, a child cartoon and if they stuck strickly to
the facts it would have been an animated documenteray on the
life styles of lions although thnx for the facts that had
begun to bug me as well

No, it's not too surprising to see a female ruling. Females
are the ones who really own a pride. Lineage is through
lionesses. Between tenures, if there is a reprieve at all,
lionesses rule. Nuka wasn't an adult. He was pushing
sub-adulthood. His mother was the ruler of the small pride.

While many of the points you bring up are certainly valid,
some of them are less fact and more stereotype. Much of what
we know about lions comes from studies done on lions from
East Africa. Lions throughout Africa exhibit different
'cultural' behaviors.

In fact, lionesses do not
only favor males with larger manes; they prefer males who
have darker manes. Even scar's small mane would be
considered far superior to Mufasa's because of its
coloration.

The human-like monarchy is part of
the story, no doubt about that. While generally young males
are kicked out of the pride, there has been at least one
documented case of a sub-adult male lion defending the pride
alongside his father and subsequently being allowed to stay
behind and rule with his sire.

The number of
cubs, though obviously modeled on how humans tend to only
give birth to one or two offspring at a time, should not be
surprising. Depending on where a pride resides, cub
mortality rates may be high, even varying year after year or
season after season.

Animals can lie and
decieve. They can also plot, plan, scheme, and 'murder' over
jealousy. There are many scientifically documented as well
as anecdotal cases of this behavior.

When a
pride leader is ousted, the females do NOT simply switch
over to their new ruler. They usually put up a fight and
there is much tension for weeks, sometimes months, after a
new pride ruler takes of the pride. Females will usher their
cubs away, etc. to trick the males into not killing their
cubs.

The lions....ugh... To human like. A lot like some of the
characters in Balto though. Like Steel a little. But Simba
he was the most human like. You know in Lion King 1/2 There
is this one scene where Simba tells Timon that he has to go
to the bathroom. real lions would just go and great article